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Saturday, December 14, 2013

My First week in the MTC

It's day five at the MTC, and I
am now in my companionship. I have two companions (as there's an uneven amount
of missionaries learning Japanese), Elder Inagaki (from Utah, his family is
Japanese but he doesn't know much) and Elder Garrad (who looks like Mr. Bean,
from Idaho who knows way more Japanese than both of us) and they're both
hilarious, especially Elder Garrad who is basically William Mullock as an
American. It's hilarious we laugh so much (at the right times), but we've
become best friends already.

In fact, everyone in our branch (two districts, which means two classes, who
are all learning Japanese and have the same schedule) are all super close,
aside from the five sisters, two of them I've never heard speak or even know
their names and three others -- one hardly knows English so never speaks, one's
just naturally shy so doesn't talk much either and, Sister Brown from NZ, but
she is totally awesome. But they're all in the other class, ours is just
Elders, which is great because no one has to worry about not being rude or
silly haha! Nah, I make our class sound bad, it's great. Elder Barr from
Brisbane and I are the only Aussies in our branch, but it's awesome because we
all look for each other and sit together in workshops, presentations, at meal
times and so on. It's great how close we all are.

It's going to be sad when we have to say goodbye to two thirds of them
(going to other Japanese missions) which is funny to say because we've only
known each other for like three days but are all already best friends. Everyone
jokes around and everyone, I mean everyone, loooves mine and Elder Barr's
accents, I think he's loving the attention more than me but hey everyone's cool
so it's all good. Elder Barr is pretty much Jake Reeve and Jackson Corona combined,
he reminds me so much of both of them. I get along with him the best, but
basically if our branch aren't studying Japanese or the Gospel, then we're all
laughing and joking which is awesome. This is better than any school I've been
too, that's for sure.

Our teacher Fowers Kyodai, is so funny! And on our first lesson he spoke pat
least 95% in Japanese, their idea is to just speak almost all Japanese (slowly
and on a lower level of course) and that we have to use Japanese in our general
life as much as we can and oh my goodness I can not actually believe how much
we have all learnt. We've done Japanese for two days now, and we can all
already pray in Japanese, carry a basic conversation, and last night we taught
a message to a role-playing investigator in Japanese. Our message was about
prayer and it went for about 6-7 minutes and we messed up quite a bit but it
was more than okay because we hadn't even role played with someone yet, let
alone in Japanese. But he was an RM from Utah so he was nice and he talked slow
for us.

The other day though we had
these 'investigators' in which we had to observe other people teaching, and
everyone says they aren't members, even themselves after the activity was over
and we were just casually talking to them and I'd be convinced but a few Elders
have theories and stuff, whether they're actors or not, but that's beside the
point as we're meant to be observing a lesson under the impression that they're
investigators. Spiritually I've already grown so much, and my testimony of
missionaries has increased and I'm so uplifted by everything I see and do here.

I just wanted to let everyone
back home that I'm having the time of my life, most people here are awesome and
the Elders in our district are all super cool, and hilarious. We all clicked
the first time we all met and it's great because everyone just loves each
other. I have to go now but I love you all and I hope everything's going well
for everyone.

Sayonara minasan, aishite masu!

(You don't say that in Japan, but in the MTC, the Elders all
say it to each other)

Elder Barr is the only other Australian Elder in his group (district). He is from Brisbane and one of his closest newly made pals

His 2 American companions, Elder Inagaki and
Elder Garrad. They found a stash of Lollies behind a vent from 2004

Elder Barr, Elder
Moua and I outside the Provo Temple which is closed for another month for
renovations